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The first computer 'bug' was a real insect — a moth found stuck inside a machine in 1947.

History of computing

TechnologyHistory

Why it matters

The idea in context

Engineers working on the Harvard Mark II traced a fault to a moth caught in a relay and taped it into the logbook, noting the 'first actual case of bug being found'. The word for a glitch was already old, but the story stuck.

Türkçe

Aynı kart, başka bir dilde.

İlk bilgisayar 'bug'ı gerçek bir böcekti — 1947'de bir makinenin içinde sıkışmış bulunan bir güve.

Harvard Mark II üzerinde çalışan mühendisler, bir arızayı bir röleye takılan güveye kadar izledi ve onu kayıt defterine bantlayarak 'gerçek anlamda bulunan ilk bug vakası' diye not düştü. Arıza anlamındaki sözcük zaten eskiydi; ama hikâye akıllarda kaldı.

Source trail

Read beyond the card.

Batch 2026-07-05 (reviewed).

Background reading: Software bugAttribution and context are revised when stronger evidence appears. Corrections are welcome through the editorial page.
Open in the iPhone appEditorial method

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The Apollo Guidance Computer flew astronauts to the Moon with about 4 KB of working memory — your phone has roughly a million times more.

The AGC had about 4 KB of RAM, 72 KB of fixed 'rope core' memory, and ran at roughly 1 MHz — less computing power than a musical greeting card. Yet in 1969 it steered Apollo 11 across 380,000 km, ran the landing radar, and even recovered gracefully from overload alarms minutes before touchdown. The story is not about weak hardware; it is about what disciplined engineering, compact code and ruthless prioritising can do under impossible constraints.

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